Delhi looking for turnaround against Mumbai at home turf

New Delhi, Nov 15 (IANS) The stars will be missing but the intensity will be the same when defending champions Delhi, sans pace spearhead Ashish Nehra, take on leaders Mumbai in a Group ‘A’ match in the Ranji Trophy Super League here Sunday.Nehra suffered a hamstring injury during Delhi’s last match against Hyderabad, which ended in a draw. He didn’t bowl in the second innings. The lanky left-armer missed the team’s training session at the Ferozeshah Kotla Saturday morning.

With two back-to-back wins, Mumbai is sitting at the top of Group A with 11 points while Delhi have just four points with two draws. But Delhi will be hoping for a turnaround at home ground to move up in the points table.

Star players like Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Ishant Sharma, who are in the national squad for the ODI series against England, won’t be there for Delhi. Neither will be Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan or Rohit Sharma for Mumbai.

But both teams have enough firepower to make it an exciting encounter.

Delhi coach Vijay Dahiya will be pinning hopes on his batsmen led by former India opener and skipper Aakash Chopra, who is in good touch.

“There is no need to press the panic button. It is still early days in the tournament,” Chopra said.

Besides Chopra, the middle-order will see Sikhar Dhawan, Puneet Bisht and Rajat Bhatia trying to put up a good show against Mumbai.

Mumbai are riding high after convincing victories against Rajasthan and Gujarat.

“We are happy with the starts we have got and we would like to carry forward the momentum,” said Mumbai coach Pravin Amre.

All eyes will be on skipper Wasim Jaffer, who paired with young Ajinkya Rahane to come out with a match winning 218-run second wicket stand in the last match against Gujarat.

Sahil Kukreja and Amol Muzumdar, who failed to convert good starts, will be also looking to get a big score. Talented medium-pacer Dhaval Kulkarni will be the bowler to watch out for.